Halos diehards rise early to hang with Roger Lodge

Roger Lodge and his young pals used to ride their bikes all the way from Lakewood, west along Katella Avenue, and arrive at the Big A in time for an Angels game. This was, like, 1972, which would have made Lodge 13 years old. They'd leave their bikes outside the stadium. "No one would touch them!" Lodge says.

Inside, they'd pay 75 cents for an upper-deck seat and move closer. The Angels were mediocre then, and you could sit just about anywhere. In '72, even with Nolan Ryan in his first year with the Halos, the team drew only 744,190 fans.

The 2012 version could be the most closely watched and intensely followed of any Angels team in the franchise's 52-year history. (Read beat writer Bill Plunkett's season preview.) Led by Albert Pujols, the Angels are certain to draw 3 million fans for the 10th straight year. On Friday morning, hours before the season-opening game against the Kansas City Royals, the cheapest ticket to be had cost $70.

Lodge is reveling in the excitement, and as a talk-show host for the Angels' flagship radio station, KLAA-AM830, he's doing his best to bring the Halos faithful along for the ride. He broadcast his morning show, "The Sports Lodge," from between the two big hats at the stadium Friday morning. When the show went live at 7 a.m. about 60 people, kids and grown-ups, some wearing red Angels stocking caps and scarves, greeted him with whoops of elation.

"It's Opening Day!" Lodge shouted into his headset microphone. "This is a big deal! Last night I put my clothes on the bed. It was like the first day of school!"

Wearing a charcoal V-neck sweater with a red striped tie, Lodge ran down the headlines of the day, talked to guests on the phone (including Angels owner Arte Moreno and Lakers reserve Matt Barnes), mused on the Angels' high-powered offense ("I don't know if the Rally Monkey is gonna get a lot of work this season"), gave away four field-level tickets, and took calls from his oddball frequent caller. Woody from Anaheim, you're really going to wear a monkey suit to Saturday's game?

The crowd eventually grew to more than 100, and before the sun started to blaze they sipped coffee and munched "Rally Monkey bread." Fans lined up to take a microphone and ask Lodge a question, or simply proclaim their love for the Halos. Lodge asked each of them: What does Opening Day mean to you? Mike Cruz, 58, of Corona, a goateed regular whom Lodge has dubbed the "Prince of the Poncho," because of his draped Angels getup, said: "On Opening Day, the grass is greener, the grilled dogs smell sweeter, the crack of the bat is louder, and the amber eyes of Rodger Lodge shine even brighter."

Lodge laughed and said: "Don't ever be more clever than me on my own show."

Loving sports from the start

Lodge, 52, was born in Fontana and grew up in the Cerritos-Lakewood area. His given name was Rogelio Chavez, and when he was 3 his father left the family. Roger's mother remarried a man named Robert Lodge, and he became dad to Roger and his two older brothers and older sister. Lodge later became a star basketball guard at Cerritos High; a teammate was UCLA men's coach Ben Howland. Lodge later played for Whittier College.

Lodge spent his early 20s trying to make it in Hollywood. His roommate for 11 years was the actor and hunk, John Stamos. "He was the greatest roommate in the history of roommates," Lodge says. They went from sharing a small apartment to a Woodland Hills mansion after Stamos landed a starring gig on the sitcom "Full House," with the Olson twins, in 1987. "We were living the dream because of that 'Full House' money," Lodge says.

Lodge filled in as guest host on "Talk Soup" when Greg Kinnear was away, but before he got into the sports-talk racket he was best known for "Blind Date," a goofy reality show he hosted from 1999 to 2006. That program showcased Lodge's quick wit and humor, but it also forced him to say lines like: "Larice is a Long Island girl who likes her men big and buff."

All along Lodge wanted to do sports. He remembers using a green transistor radio he kept muffled under his pillow to hear Angels play-by-play man Dick Enberg call Clyde Wright's no-hitter on July 3, 1970.

"I always wanted to be the Johnny Carson of sports," he says. But "the one thing that hurt me in this business is that I was the 'Blind Date' guy. 'Oh, what does he know about the Lakers' triangle offense, or the setup men for the Angels?' I had to know twice as much and work harder than the average guy because I was pigeonholed."

Full circle

Lodge hosted a sports-talk show for KMPC-1540 "The Ticket" out of Santa Monica from 2003 to 2005, and the sports-radio mega-star, Jim Rome, began having him on his own shows, both on radio and ESPN. Lodge landed at KLAA in 2008, and in addition to his three-hour morning show, on Friday he launched "Angels On Deck," an hourlong program that begins 90 minutes before each home game. It'll be broadcast from Gate 5 at the Big A.

Fans will be seeing him, and hearing him, a lot more this season. And he still has that giddy feeling about the Angels. What cemented his connection to the team was when his son Brandon, a relief pitcher, was drafted by the Angels in 2006. Brandon went to UCLA and is now in the Angels' farm system.

"When Clyde Wright called me to congratulate me on my son joining this organization, that's when I knew I'd come full circle," Lodge said.